Del Mar To Pay Its Horsemen Additional $850,000 In Purse

[MaryS]

Press Release sent out this morning.

Del Mar To Pay Its Horsemen Additional $850,000 In Purses

Spurred by a steady summer betting trend that surpassed expectations, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club today announced that it will pay its horsemen a retroactive purse distribution estimated to be between $850,000 and $900,000.

The retroactive purse payment, covering the recently concluded 37-day meeting that ran from July 21 to September 8, will go toward overnight purses only, excluding the track's major stakes program. The distribution to horsemen will amount to approximately 7.5% of the overnight purses paid in 2010.

Once final figures from all sources have been confirmed, Del Mar officials expect to be sending out checks to horsemen by early November.

Del Mar's 71st summer meeting finished with a total handle of $449,711,296 and a daily average of $12,154,359. Though the overall numbers showed a daily average decline from the previous season, the amount wagered on a per-race basis in 2010 equaled the amount wagered in 2009 as the track carded fewer races in anticipation of a decline in horse population.

"Our horsemen were, along with racing fans, the reason for a successful meet this summer," said DMTC's president and general manager Craig Fravel. "Our racing office managed the inventory well and in the end the numbers -- both on the track and at the pari-mutuels -- were better than expected."

The track averaged 8.2 horses per race throughout the summer, just a shade below last summer's standard (8.5) and among the best per-race figures in the country.

Del Mar's daily average purses for 2010 -- $557,000 per day -- are the highest in California and among the cream of the crop nationally.

Besides its overnight purses, the track also was proactive in enhancing its major stakes schedule. This year through a sponsorship arrangement with the racing television and wagering company TVG it was able to maintain the purse on its premier race -- the Pacific Classic -- at $1,000,000, ensuring that it would be the only million-dollar Thoroughbred race in the west.

[Igeteven]

Why not, when it costs 3500 per month to take care of a horse in California.

[Hollywoodmike]

Good deal for the horsemen. They have been excluded from so many revenues mainly from exorbitant ADW charges